The narcissism of social media users

Christopher carpenter from Western Illinois University conducted a large-scale study narcissistic tendencies of Facebook users around the world. Narcissism carpenter defines as “a comprehensive a feeling of superiority, need for admiration and an excessive ego”.

According to the author of the study, for the average narcissistic personality Facebook and other social networks provide hundreds of opportunities for self-expression, a new shallow friendships and emotionally rich communication. Moreover, in social networks the user has a high degree of freedom of expression and control over how his image is perceived and evaluated by other users.

Carpenter asked about 300 Facebook users to fill out a questionnaire NPI, identifying narcissistic leadership personality. We evaluated the ways of self-presentation, such as a status update, filling out information about themselves, share photos and interests, and antisocial behaviour: excessive desire for social support, negative emotions of anger until during a long absence of comments to the updated status, revenge for negative comments on the publication of negative feedback about that user, and delete him from friends list.

The main hypothesis of the study was the following: the results of the questionnaire on a scale reflecting the so-called “grandiose exhibitionism”, will be correlated with the user activity with the aim of presenting and create a positive impression about yourself, and the result on the scale of exploitation will be associated with aggressive and antisocial behavior.

The hypothesis of the author was confirmed. While self-esteem was not associated with semipresenciales actions and negatively associated with some types of antisocial behaviour.

According to Christopher carpenter, if social networks are presented to the users convenient tools to raise self-esteem and restore the high status of his ego, and the place to search approval from the society, it is crucial to recognize the potential dangers and negative effects of communication in social networks and personality types those who is involved in this communication.